As my colleagues and I plotted an underlying theme for our inaugural season, I began to think about the nature of chamber music, or of any successful collaboration. It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that chamber music is my favorite type of musical genre, both to play and hear. There is something unspeakably satisfying about connecting with a small group of like-minded musicians all with the shared goal of producing a sublime performance. Just like any relationship, some of these collaborations are more fulfilling than others. Some of them require a lot of work to achieve worthwhile results. But there is comfort in the doing, in the mere attempt. Chamber music is equal parts chess and double dutch swaddled in a narrative blanket. It is strategy and harmony bound by storytelling.
On our November 10 mainstage concert, vim is performing the devilishly clever “Workers Union” by Louis Andriessen. This will test our mettle as an ensemble, since the whole group is required to be in strict rhythmic unison throughout the unspecified (to be determined by the group) duration of the piece. It is written for any number of instruments, and is melodically indeterminate. The composer himself writes, “This piece is a combination of individual freedom and severe discipline: its rhythm is exactly fixed; the pitch, on the other hand, is indicated only approximately, on a single-lined stave. It is difficult to play in an ensemble and to remain in step, sort of like organizing and carrying on political action.”
In a world whose collective political action seems to toggle from mildly unsettling to deeply offensive in the blink of a tweet, I can take solace in the fact that, at least in my little corner of the world, I have a group of fierce individuals who have agreed to tuck themselves in to this chess rope blanket with me and see what transpires. For the common good.
(Also if you’re not familiar with my writing, get ready for a lot of semi-confusing metaphors from here on out.)
-Choo Choo Hu, piano